WAUKESHA, Wis. (TCN) — A judge granted a 22-year-old woman release from a psychiatric hospital 10 years after she almost killed one of her classmates because she wanted to impress the horror character Slender Man.
Court records show Waukesha County Judge Michael Bohren made the determination Thursday, Jan. 9, and noted that Morgan Geyser’s conditional release “would not pose a significant risk of bodily harm to the defendant or others.” This was Geyser’s fourth attempt at release. The Associated Press reports Geyser will be placed in a group home and will be reevaluated in 60 days.
Geyser was sentenced in 2018 to 40 years in the Department of Health Services after she was found guilty for first-degree attempted murder but not guilty by reason of insanity for the 2014 stabbing attack of Payton Leutner. She has since been in the care of the Winnebago Mental Health Facility.
According to the Milwaukee JournalSentinel, a consultant for Winnebago, Dr. Kenneth Robbins, said at Geyser’s hearing, “She has had multiple opportunities to be in the community and has done very well. There is little that Winnebago can do at this point.”
Psychologist Dr. Deborah Collins added, “The bottom line is that there is unanimous support for Miss Geyser’s release.”
Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz, however, disagreed with Judge Bohren’s conditional release, arguing, “We don’t have any clear answer whatsoever to why she committed this offense.”
Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier attacked Leutner because they reportedly believed that Slender Man, the fictional character, would kill them and their families if they did not carry out the crime. They stabbed Leutner 19 times at a park in Waukesha, and she managed to crawl to a path where a bicyclist saw her, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Geyser and Weier were only 12 years old when the stabbing occurred, but prosecutors charged them as adults.
The Associated Press reports Weier was also sentenced to several years in a mental health facility. She was released in 2021 to live with her father.
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